Falling Gannet

Falling Gannet

3,975.00

Falling Gannet is part of Michael Francis Reagan’s Falling series, based on a childhood memory. When the artist was five or six years old, he witnessed a mourning dove fall from the sky and land hard on the ground in the woods behind his childhood home. He watched the dove as it lay still and in shock, the sky darkening around them. When he finally reached out to touch it, the bird exploded into flight. “I felt a great loneliness, alone there in those woods—a stillness,” Reagan says. “Then I felt fear, and then sadness. Finally, as the bird exploded back into life and into the sky, I felt joy that such a thing could even be possible.”

Reagan’s boyhood experience translated itself into the first painting of the series: Falling Mourning Dove. Other birds began to come to him and fill his canvasses. He’s painted 25 in the series so far.

Reagan’s bird paintings continue to be commissioned by Audubon, The Nature Conservancy, and The National Parks of America.